


be the new one, burn to shine

by stars_inthe_sky



Series: Comrades [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 05:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1333777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky/pseuds/stars_inthe_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wears long sleeves, even in July. Natasha notices.</p><p>(Prompt for #buckynat week)</p>
            </blockquote>





	be the new one, burn to shine

“Aren’t you hot?” Natasha asks, squinting at him through the hazy July sunshine from her repose on the picnic blanket.

Bucky, sitting up to her left, offers his best rakish grin. “For you, darlin’, always.”

“Because you’re sweating through your shirt pretty thoroughly.”

It’s an exaggeration, though not a big one; even the paper-thin linen he’s been favoring since the weather turned nice is too much fabric for a day like this. Bucky wipes sweat off his forehead with the cuff of his left sleeve and winces, both at the mark it leaves and at the heat emanating from his metal fingertips.

“Okay, fine, I’m hot. But how are you not overheated? And if you make one joke about winter, I swear—”

She looks at him pointedly. “I’m not hot because I’m not wearing long sleeves when it’s in the thirties.”

“Nineties, in Fahrenheit. This is America.”

“Not my point.”

“It’s better than the alternative,” he sighs.

“James, this is New York. Brooklyn, even. It’s 2014. Aliens destroyed half of Manhattan two years ago, there are superheroes and artists and immigrants of every color walking down the street, not to mention all those idiots using Google Glass. Do you really think your arm is going to attract that much attention?”

“From the wrong people, yeah, it might. And I don’t want to scare anyone. It’s—it’s  _my arm_ , but—”

Natasha pulls herself into a seated position next to him. “Look, the wrong people are going to be able to find you— _us_ —whether they can see the star on your shoulder or not. And James…”

“It’s fine, Natalia,” he murmurs, though he can’t help flinching a little when she touches his sweat-stained sleeve. She drops it. “I know I…I didn’t used to care, but now…”

“ _Ya znayu, ya ponimayu_.” She nuzzles his shoulder. “Come lie down with me.”

It’s a struggle, even after all these months, just to  _be_ —even with her, even here. Bucky has no idea how Natasha does it, but then again, she had always had downtime between assignments.

He just had the ice.

But it’s summertime in the city, now, and Bucky wills himself to relax, while Natasha toys idly with their intertwined fingers. His shirt is probably soaked through by now, but he’s finding it increasingly hard to care, not if he can have moments like this in his life.

A faint whistle sails through the air, and before Bucky even consciously processes it, his left hand has flown up to catch a hard plastic disc in midair. He swallows, nervous, but the thing looks harmless.

“It’s a Frisbee,” Natasha supplies in a sleepy voice. “Kids throw them around for fun—like Steve with his shield. Only smaller and with fewer rare earth elements. Just throw it back to whoever owns it.”

Bucky stands up and turns in the direction the Frisbee had originated. There’s a girl, maybe eight years old, jogging toward him. Dozens of little braids bounce off her head with each step, and she waves at him when she spots what he’s holding.

He hesitates. He knows how to throw it—it’s a projectile like any other, and hell, he could use Steve’s shield pretty competently even before the wrist movements and physics had been crammed into his head. But he’s not sure how to return it without hurting the little girl.

She solves his problem by walking right up to him and holding out her hand. “That’s my Frisbee, okay, please?”

He blinks and hands it to her, a little too sun-dazed to realize which hand he’s using. He remembers when the little girl gasps, “Is that your  _hand_?” and grabs his wrist before he can make a getaway, either because he’s still stunned or because she has the kind of reflexes that would make a younger Natalia Romanova salivate.

Bucky opens his mouth to reply, but no words come out, and he can feel his face flushing, even under the sweat. The girl doesn’t seem to notice, though, as she’s fixated on the sliding metal plates and technology so advanced that even Tony Stark is having trouble replicating it. “This is the  _coolest_  thing I have  _ever_  seen! Are you, like, a robot? Or—ohmigod, is it armor? Like, like—”

“He’s a knight,” Natasha says from behind him. “Even slew a dragon last week.”

The little girl’s eyes go saucer-wide, and she giggles in delight. “Thank you for my Frisbee, good sir,” she says, with a terrible mock-English accent and a wobbly curtsey, before scampering off.

He turns back to Natasha. “You know we were only calling that thing Dragon Man, right? He was just an android.”

“Who could fly and breathe fire. I’d count it, Sir James of the Red Hook.”

“The Red Star would be okay, too. Maybe. Eventually,” he admits, and starts to roll up his sleeves.

**Author's Note:**

> [lola-mcfly](http://lola-mcfly.tumblr.com) prompted: "a blushing Bucky"
> 
> Red Hook, for the record, is a neighborhood in Brooklyn. 
> 
> Originally posted [here](http://stars-inthe-sky.tumblr.com/post/79981684961/buckynat-week-prompt-a-blushing-bucky) on Tumblr. Title from Joshua Radin's "[Closer](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HaTGAMbd8I)."


End file.
